


I tried to live in a world without you in it

by Anathema Device (notowned)



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Athos Whump, Canon Era, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Torture, emotional distress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7985713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notowned/pseuds/Anathema%20Device
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if it had been Milady, not d'Artagnan, who pulled Athos out of the burning house in 'Commodities'? An alternative scene/filler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I tried to live in a world without you in it

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by my own gifset [here](https://iamanathemadevice.tumblr.com/post/150070400604/miladyathos-season-1-ep-3-commodities-that) (I got the idea while making it :), particularly this image

Anne opened the locket and everything she had believed to be true for the last five years, shattered like cheap glass.

Athos still loved her.

Athos had loved her and had had her hanged. That was still true.

The fire had caught hold, and unless she wanted to die with him, she had to get out of here. Unless she wanted _him_ to die too, she had to get him out as well.

“Get up.” He stared at her in confusion. “Get _up_ , Athos.” She stood and kicked him hard in the hip. He groaned, but she didn’t let him close his eyes again, pulling at his arms. “Get up. I need your help!”

That roused him, and she managed to get him to his feet. He probably imagined he was helping her to walk, but it was she who held him up, and forced him to stagger with her towards the back of the house and the stables. “Get on your horse, you stupid man.”

But no amount of nagging or threats or pain could transform him into a sober man capable of climbing that high, so she made him hold the pommel while she led both horses away from the house, into the trees beyond it. Just in time too, for she heard one of his friends—d’Artagnan, she realised—calling, and looking for Athos. From the shadows, she watched the boy run to the stables, find it empty, and run around the other side. _Good. He thinks he’s gone._

She waited another half hour or more, to be sure d’Artagnan had departed. Athos had slumped to the ground. She looked at him in disgust. He had never been such a sot while they were married—while they had _lived as man and wife_ , she amended in her mind, for they were still married, whatever he wanted to believe—but now the musketeer Athos was notorious for his drunken behaviour, a shame upon the good name of the garrison, a warning to all those who liked to drink not to let it go so far. She wondered that Treville, let along the king, let the man remain in the ranks.

When she thought it was clear, and the fire already dying down under the light drizzle now falling, she led the horses and her drink-sodden husband back towards the house. The horses stabled again, she looked for somewhere they could shelter. The servants’ quarters were still intact, separated from the rest of the house and safe, she reasoned, from the flames. She picked the lock easily, and opened the door, shoving Athos through onto the floor while she went in search of a tinderbox to strike her flint into, to light a candle.

The place was neat, though dusty, empty of all but furniture. It would do for the evening. But first, to deal with him. She carried rope with her on her saddle, of course, and so did he. She brought it and their saddlebags into the servants’ quarters, finding her husband had crawled all of three feet from where she had dumped him. She would have to deal with him but first she needed to get out of her good dress before it was ruined. No point in losing something truly valuable on his account. She carried breeches and boots of her own, but took his spare shirt instead of using hers. He could afford to replace it.

She lit two more candles, then put a chair against the wooden drying pole near a window. “Athos, get up.”

No movement. She hauled on his arm and pulled his hair until the pain roused him. “I need you to sit here.”

“Anne?”

“Sit in the chair.”

He stumbled into it and slumped over. He didn’t protest—or didn’t notice, she didn’t know which—when she tied his ankles to the chair legs, not when she tied his hands behind him to the pole. She put a piece of rope around his neck and cinched it to the pole. How easy it would be to kill him now? Choke him. Shoot him with his own gun. God, even put her hand over his face and smother him, so passive and drunk was he.

But that was too kind a fate for this man, this man who said he loved her and still wore her locket, but yet had condemned her to a slow, agonising death, all because his fool of a brother couldn’t keep his hands to himself and his nose out of her business. Thomas had had that skinny bitch Catherine for a fiancé. Was it her fault if the girl couldn’t give him what he wanted? He should have bedded her and got a child on her. That was the noble way, after all. But no, he didn’t want his pure wife to be to be anything but a virgin—or perhaps it was she who’d refused him.

Anne didn’t know, didn’t care. She just hadn’t wanted his hands on her, forcing her to have to lie about more things to Athos, his brother treating her like one of his privileges, a possession, just because Athos had married her.

Athos made a strange noise and she realised she had tugged the rope around his neck tight as the memories had taken her. She released the tension and his head fell forward again. She could leave him like this while she slept. If he escaped, she would find him in Paris. But if he didn’t, he would pay here and now for what he’d done.

She slipped off her breeches and lay, wearing only his shirt, on his bedroll. It smelled of horse and sweat and campfire.

It smelled like him.

****************************

She was never a heavy sleeper these days, so she woke just as the sunlight began to show through the dusty windows. Instinctively she checked her surroundings. Athos was still there, and if he’d woken at all during the night, there was no sign of it. By the time she had relieved herself outside and found the well to drink and fill a bucket from, he still hadn't moved.

She set the bucket down and pulled a chair over so she could sit in front of her husband. Drawing her knife, she poked the tip into his chest. The pain woke him with a start. “Good morning, dearest,” she said, sneering.

“Anne. You’re alive.”

“So are you, thanks to me.” She pulled his shirt open, baring his chest. Her locket hung askew on the hairy skin. She could have taken it off him but why bother? It wasn’t valuable, and it would only remind her of a time she wanted to forget. Let him carry it around like a silver penance, if he wanted. She drew the tip of the knife down his chest, admiring the red line and thin trickle of blood. He watched her, reacting not at all.

“So here we are, husband.”

“What do you want?”

“Revenge. Always and forever.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Too easy,” she crooned. She slashed at his chest, making a deeper cut. This time he hissed, but made no attempt to pull away from her. “Why did you come back? Nostalgia? You panicked Remi so much he had to come find me in Paris and tell me you were stalking around the village again.”

“So you killed him.”

“He begged for death. Said he couldn’t stand the guilt. The _guilt_ that he hadn’t killed me. So of course I put him out of his misery. Aren’t you pleased, Athos? You accused me of murder and then you made me a murderer.”

“You didn’t have to—”

She slashed him again, this time on the collarbone. “Oh, but I _did_ , husband. And you would be dead too if the cardinal didn’t hire incompetents who can be bested by a farm boy.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending. He didn’t know, she realised. He’d never worked out who had inspired the cardinal to choose _him_ for his thugs to impersonate. She’d thought him cleverer than this. “Do you know what it’s like to know you’re dying, Athos? To feel the life leaving you as you struggle for air? Do you know how much it _hurts_ , when your lungs are on fire and your mind is telling you to fight for life even though it’s hopeless?”

“No. Anne, I didn’t want you to suffer.”

She cut him on the arm, deep, then jabbed the point of her knife into his shoulder. “Liar!” she spat. “You could have shot me. You could have stabbed me. You could have let me go!”

“You killed a man, Anne! You killed Thomas!”

“How many men have you killed, Athos? Just for insulting your honour? Just for being the enemy of someone you care nothing for, or by the order of that fool on the throne? I killed to protect us, and you killed me for it!”

She stood and went behind him, grabbing the tail of the rope that looped around his neck, then sat again, winding it around her elbow and hand, pulling it taut. He stiffened, sitting up, then straining as the noose tightened. “Do you want to know what it feel like, Athos? Don’t you want to know how I suffered?”

“Yes.”

She stopped. “You mock me even now.”

“Do it. I deserve it.”

She yanked it tight, and he choked. Yet he made no struggle against the bonds, nothing more than the instinctive, unstoppable urge to released the stricture. He wouldn’t even give her the satisfaction of panicking, of suffering properly.

He could still breathe, just. She tied the rope off around the pole, so he was kept in that position, neck back, throat constricted. Let him learn what she learned in those painful, awful seconds between life and death. “Does it hurt, Athos? Do you know that even when the rope comes off, your throat will swell so much that you think you’ll die anyway? That you could yet die even though you’re supposed to be saved?” She tightened it just a little more and the desperate sound he made gave her pleasure.

She drew her knife tip down his chest again, drawing patterns in the blood and adding to it. “They say some men spend as they’re being strangled. Are you one of them, husband? Shall we see if your body loves the pain, the way mine hated it?”

His green eyes stared, his despair open, his thoughts naked on his face. It disgusted her. Why wasn’t he afraid? He lived openly, without fear, and yet he wanted to die? “Why aren’t you frightened!”

She jabbed the point of her knife hard into his left should, ground it there until he moaned and choked. “Why?”

“Wa..ant. T...o. D...ie.”

She slapped him. “You bastard. Why didn’t you just shoot yourself then? Instead of leaving it to me to make the decision. You couldn’t kill me with your own hand, and you can’t even kill yourself. Everyone else has to make the hard decisions, do the dirty deeds. No wonder the cardinal employs me, not pure, honourable Olivier d’Athos.”

She wanted to go mad, slice him up, choke him harder. But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of suffering properly. She put the knife tip under his eye.

“I would let you live, but blind, perhaps. I could cut off your hands and force you to depend on the kindness of others, like I do.” She pulled his head back even further by grabbing his hair. “Or maybe I can leave you here, while I go back to Paris and have those friends of yours killed. That young one, d’Artagnan. He’s not as clever, not as experienced as the others. Knowing you lived while he died at my hands, would hurt, wouldn’t it? Another little brother, dead?”

For the first time, he struggled, gasping for air as he tried to speak, mouthing ‘No’ and something else she couldn’t make out. “So that’s the way to unfreeze your noble heart, is it? Threaten your friends? Not your woman, obviously. You haven’t touched one in five years, I warrant.”

She stabbed him in the other shoulder, and slashed him twice more on his chest and stomach. The blood flowed freely now. She tightened the noose again, so that he had to struggle to draw in the smallest breath. “And so I will. You can bleed to death here, knowing that your friends will suffer too. They can join you in hell.”

She put the knife back in its sheath, stood and pushed her chair clear of him. His eyes, wild now, followed her, his mouth still working even as he choked and struggle against the strangling leash. “This is what I wanted. I wanted you to know what it felt to be dying. Now you do.”

She picked up her saddlebags and left, throwing them onto her still-saddled horse, and set off. She would not go directly to Paris, perhaps. She needed time and a plan to take Athos’s friends down. But he didn’t know that, and would die in despair.

This was her revenge. Soon, she vowed, it would taste sweet to her.

****************************

D’Artagnan caught up with the others before they’d broken camp. “He’s not with you?”

Aramis brushed his hair back with his hand. “Athos? No? He wasn’t at the house?”

“It was ablaze when I arrived, but his horse was gone.”

“The house was on fire?”

Porthos strapped on his weapons belt. “He’s in trouble. We need to go after him.” Bonnaire, still tied up, said nothing, perhaps wisely.

“We can’t,” Aramis said. “We have to get this one to the cardinal.”

“Bugger the cardinal,” Porthos growled.

“That’s all very well and good if your tastes swing that way, my friend, but if Athos is on his way to Paris ahead of us—”

“This is the only road,” d’Artagnan insisted. “He would have caught up with you.”

Aramis looked at Porthos. “He’s right. Damn it. But we still have to get Bonnaire to Paris.”

“Gentlemen, please don’t hurry on my account.”

“Shut up,” Porthos snapped. Bonnaire subsided, shrinking back.

“You don’t need me as well. I’ll go back, do another search,” d’Artagnan said. “Maybe...maybe he just went off to the village and is on his way now?”

“All right. But be careful, d’Artagnan. If Athos is lost, we don’t want to lose you too.”

D’Artagnan grimaced. “If Athos is lost,” he replied to Aramis, “I don’t much care what happens to me.” He wheeled his horse around and set off at a canter before either of his friends could talk him out of it.

He stopped in Pinon to ask if any of them had seen Athos—the _comte_ , he corrected himself. No one had since the day before, but later that day, they had found the blacksmith dead in his workshop, apparently by his own hand. The man had ridden out the previous day in a hurry and returned that morning before the _comte_ had come to the village.

“And did you see any other strangers?” d’Artagnan asked the baker who had given him the most information.

“Other than you and your friends? No, sir,” the man said.

“Do you have any idea why the blacksmith killed himself?”

The baker spat on the ground. “I don’t know, sir.”

D’Artagnan thanked him, more puzzled and worried than before, and pushed his horse to a gallop to return to the house, now half-ruined by the fire that the rain overnight had doubtless extinguished. He rode around the back of the building and found Athos’s horse in the stable, bedroll, and saddlebags missing, but the saddle still in place. The horse was hungry, so he stopped long enough to fork some hay into the manger. Athos would never have left his horse stabled overnight in this state, unfed and still saddled.

“Athos!” d’Artagnan called, over and over. Was his friend in the ruins, dead because d’Artagnan hadn’t spotted the horse? But he could have sworn the stables had been empty, their interior easily seen by the light of the inferno in the main building. “Athos!”

The only part of the house apparently untouched by the fire was a structure to the back and the side. Servants’ quarters perhaps? He tried the door and found it unlocked. He found a horrifying scene, and he ran to where Athos was tied, bleeding and choking, to a drying pole. He sliced through the rope holding Athos by his neck, strangling him, then shook his friend’s shoulder. “Athos! Wake up!”

He looked down at Athos’s body and found several wounds bleeding freely, at least four severe enough to endanger his life. He looked around for something, anything to staunch the bleeding. Athos’s saddlebags. D’Artagnan found the supply of clean bandages Aramis insisted on each of them carrying, and a bottle of brandy, which Aramis probably didn’t know about. d’Artagnan quickly rinsed all the wounds and cuts, minor and major, before putting dressings on the worst of them and tying them as tight as he could manage. He had more bandages in his own saddlebags, but first, he had to get Athos to wake up.

Even though the rope was gone, Athos still struggled for air. “Athos, it’s me, d’Artagnan. Wake up, please wake up.”

He slit the ropes fixing his friend to the pole and the chair, then dragged him over to the bedroll, laying him down. He spied a bucket of water with the ladle in place, so he filled the ladle, carefully propped up Athos’s head, and dribbled a few cool drops between the parted, gasping lips. He poured a little water over the man’s face too, and over his bruised throat. “Athos, come on. I can’t be too late. I can’t.”

Athos coughed, then choked again, wheezing and struggling. d’Artagnan helped him sit up a little which helped him breathe. “D’Artagnan,” Athos whispered. “Danger.”

“No, we’re safe. There’s no one here. What happened?”

Athos shook his head, reaching for the ladle. D’Artagnan helped him drink. “Can you sit there while I fetch more bandages?”

No answer, but Athos was awake now, so d’Artagnan risked running to the stable to fetch his own supplies, and a clean shirt for his friend. Athos had his hands on the bucket, staring at the water when D’Artagnan returned. D’Artagnan eased him back and helped him drink some more.

“Let me take this off,” he said, removing the doublet and bloodied shirt. He used the shirt to wipe Athos’s face and bloody skin. Athos looked as if someone had deliberately tortured him. These weren’t wounds from a fight.

By the time he was satisfied Athos would lose no more blood, the man had drunk more water and looked a little more aware. d’Artagnan even wiped the old shirt through his hair to remove the soot and other muck. “What happened?”

“My past,” Athos said, his voice ravaged and faint. “The others?”

“On their way. They don’t need me to take Bonnaire to Paris. Thank God I returned. I looked for you last night. Where were you?”

Athos stared up at him, but made no answer. Perhaps he had no idea. His breath smelled of sour wine, and it looked as if someone had taken advantage of his drunkenness to attack him. “The blacksmith killed himself yesterday. In the village. Do you know anything about that?”

Athos snorted, then coughed violently. D’Artagnan waited then handed him the ladle filled with water. “He died because of me,” Athos whispered.

“I don’t understand.”

“No.” He tried to stand but didn’t get very far even before D’Artagnan pushed him down. “Have to go.”

“Not yet. You need more water and something to eat. So do I. I’ve been riding most of the night.”

He fetched bread and dried meat, but Athos wouldn’t touch it, perhaps because his throat was too sore. D’Artagnan ate, and made Athos drink more water. He couldn’t decide if it was better to let Athos rest longer, but without access to Aramis’s attentions, or to force him back onto a horse where he might faint and fall, just to get to medical help all the sooner.

Athos made the decision for him, struggling onto a chair, then to his feet, still bare-chested. “Shirt,” he said.

“Athos, you’re in no fit state...oh for the love of God, stop it,” D’Artagnan groused as Athos tried to bend to pick up his soiled garment and nearly fell flat on his face. “Sit down, I’ve got a clean one.”

“She took it.”

“Who? Who’s ‘she’?” But Athos gave him a mulish glare and D’Artagnan knew that there was no arguing with him in that mood.

He helped the man put on his doublet and weapons belt, checked all their water bottles were full, and then put the saddle bags and Athos’s bedroll on their horses. Had Athos settled down for the night and been attacked? There was no sign of a struggle. Or had his attacker lain on the bedroll while Athos had been tied up? D’Artagnan had so many questions, and not a single answer.

He helped Athos mount, but refused to let him guide his own animal. He tied a rope to Athos’s horse’s bridle and took it in hand. Athos gave him a filthy look for that, but since he didn’t fight the arrangement, d’Artagnan got away with it.

“Avoid the village.”

D’Artagnan turned at Athos’s hoarse whisper. “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Right you are, your majesty.” But he did as he was ordered, even if Athos was being a prick about it, riding a wide route outside Pinon, before rejoining the main road to Paris.

With there frequent stops for d’Artagnan to help Athos regain his seat, or to drink water, they could not reach Paris before nightfall, so d’Artagnan called a halt at an inn.

“No.”

“Fine, sit on your damn horse all night, see if I care. I’m going to take a room and supper.”

Athos scowled, but let d’Artagnan help him down, and staggered to the inn with d’Artagnan’s hand under his arm. The innkeeper looked at their pauldrons and offered his best room and a meal for a fair price. “Could you bring the food to our room?” d’Artagnan asked, and the innkeeper agreed.

Getting Athos up the stairs was a feat and a half. The man’s breathing was harsher and clearly painful, and Athos lay on the bed as soon as they entered the room. D’Artagnan removed his doublet, belt and boots. “Let me check your injuries.”

Athos watched him as he opened his shirt, and looked at the bandages. The shoulder wounds were the worst, and doubtless the most painful, but there was no fresh blood. If Athos could stave off infection until Aramis had a chance to look at them, he would be all right. It was the man’s throat that worried him.

“Sore?” D’Artagnan asked, touching Athos’s neck. A slight nod was his only answer, which meant it had to be very painful indeed.

On a summer’s evening, there was no chance of ice anywhere but perhaps the palace, but when the food and beer arrived, D’Artagnan begged for a bucket of well water and some cloths, which he soaked and put across Athos’s throat. That seemed to help enough that Athos could take some stew, albeit with difficulty, and drink the beer more easily. When he was done, D’Artagnan replaced the cloths, and kept changing them until he was unable to keep his eyes open any more. He was bone tired, and could do no more for Athos that night. He cleared the food and mess away, locked the door, then stripped. “Want your breeches off?” he asked Athos.

“No.”

“Fine. Good night. Wake me if you need help. Don’t not wake me and lie there dying. I’ll take it seriously amiss.” Athos made what might have been a tiny snort of laughter, then lay still. D’Artagnan blew out the candle, pulled the blanket over them both, and was asleep almost instantly.

He woke as Athos climbed across him to get up. Dim light came through the windows which meant it was early, so he didn’t immediately follow his friend out of bed. He heard Athos using the chamber pot, then crashing about, and a final, “God damn it!” in a broken, harsh voice.

He opened his eyes to see Athos trying to mop up spilled water from the bucket with one hand, and clutching his throat with the other. “Let me,” D’Artagnan said, getting up and taking the cloths from Athos’s hand. Athos sat back on the floor, hand against his neck, clear in distress.

There was enough water left for Athos to have a cup to drink, and D’Artagnan made him do so. “Stay there. I’ll get some more water and clothes.”

No protest. Athos must have been in considerable discomfort. D’Artagnan dressed and went downstairs with the buckets and wet cloths. “My friend has a very sore throat,” he told the innkeeper’s wife. “Do you have anything that might help?”

“I’ll make him some tea with honey. Well’s out the back. I’ll give you some more cloths.”

“And bread for breakfast, if you would, please. Do you have any soup? Something easy to swallow?”

“I have some broth. That’ll have to do.”

Tea and broth sounded perfect. Between them, the cold cloths, more water and time to collect himself, Athos looked much better, though still in a lot of pain. The bruising on his neck was now livid and hideous. Why do that to a man? Why not just kill him? Unless the attacker meant to return? None of it made sense.

A morning’s ride should finally bring them to Paris. Athos insisted on taking his own reins, and D’Artagnan didn’t argue. The man would soon discover if he could do it himself or not.

He could, and stubbornly did so all the way to the edge of the city. Only then did he rein in the horse and turn to d’Artagnan. “The others don’t need to know of this.”

“But your injuries...Aramis will know.”

“I’ll speak to the surgeon at the garrison. Your word, d’Artagnan.”

“Of course.” Though if Athos could hide all of his injuries from their sharp-eyed friend, d’Artagnan would be amazed.

Porthos and Aramis had not returned to the garrison so Athos was able to go to his rooms and fetch another scarf to hide the bruising. D’Artagnan made him go to the surgeon, who tutted at the state of his injuries, stitched the worst, and told Athos to take it easy. Not a word was said to the surgeon of what lay under Athos’s scarf, which he refused to remove. If Captain Treville knew Athos was hiding injuries, he said nothing when his lieutenant and newest recruit presented themselves.

Porthos and Aramis returned several hours later, Porthos spitting with fury over the deal their captive had struck with the cardinal. “Someone tried to kill the little shit at the palace too, but failed. He has the best luck with the worst morals.”

Aramis finally took the chance to look at Athos and d’Artagnan. “What kept you? Where did you find him?”

“Business in Pinon, that’s all,” d’Artagnan lied cheerfully. “He was there all along, and I’d missed him. What are we going to do about Bonnaire?”

Athos swallowed his wine. “I have a plan to deal with him.” He kept his voice low, and the details of what he had to say were so compelling, neither Porthos nor Aramis thought to question why he sounded so hoarse.

Setting up Bonnaire for a fall took up the others’ attention, and if D’Artagnan kept a closer eye than normal on Athos, no one commented. Athos, for his part, pretended to be drinking a little too much that afternoon, though he was sober enough by nightfall.

Only after the plan had succeeded, and Bonnaire sent on his way to where he deserved to be, did Athos excuse himself.

“So early?” Aramis cried. “But we have much to celebrate.”

“I’m tired.” And with that tone, and the determined set of his shoulders, they had all learned not to argue. Aramis and Porthos went on their way to find a tavern that suited them. D’Artagnan said he was going back to the Bonacieux house, but changed direction once out of their sight, and headed after Athos.

“Don’t need a nursemaid,” Athos said as he opened the door.

“I’m just here as a friend. How do you feel?”

Athos sat on the narrow bed and pulled off his boots. “Rotten. Deservedly so.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind. I’m fine. I am, of course, in your debt.”

“No, you’re not. You would do the same for me.”

Athos looked up at him. “This would never happen to you. D’Artagnan, watch your back.”

D’Artagnan frowned. “I always do.”

“No, more than you usually do. There is an enemy after us. After _you_. Be careful.”

“When I went back to Constance’s this afternoon, she said a woman called Milady de Winter had come around and frightened her. Is that who you mean?”

Athos hesitated. “Description?”

“Dark hair, green eyes, very beautiful. Offering Bonacieux work, apparently.”

“Keep away from her, d’Artagnan. She’s deadly, and bears a grudge.”

“Against me? Against _you_. She’s the one—”

“I’ll say no more. But she works for Richelieu, and she threatened you. Watch your back.”

“Watch your own, too.”

“I plan to.”

D’Artagnan hoped that was true. But still the mystery remained—how had a woman got the jump on Athos, and why had he not tried to fight her off?

“I bid you good night,” Athos said, looking at the door and then back at D’Artagnan, who took the hint.

He touched Athos’s shoulder as he passed. “Take it easy. Surgeon’s orders.”

Athos snorted. “Of course.”

D’Artagnan left, hoping Athos would be all right. As he walked back to the Bonacieux house, he had the impression of being followed. He kept his hand on his sword pommel the whole way back, but no one appeared to challenge him.

He suspected he had not seen the last of ‘Milady de Winter’, and neither had Athos.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, criticisms, corrections and kudos so very gratefully requested!


End file.
